


There's A Line

by christian_hayes



Series: Nowhere Boys [2]
Category: Nowhere Boys (TV)
Genre: AU, M/M, Soulmates, i accidentally typed soilmates and honestly? jake/saskia shipname
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-13 12:48:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 4,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18032039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/christian_hayes/pseuds/christian_hayes
Summary: Jake Riles had expected to wake up in his soulmate's bedroom on his eighteenth birthday, of course he had, it's just that he'd also expected to wake back up in his own bedroom the next day. But based on the black curtains he was facing, it wasn't gonna be as easy as he wanted it to be.





	1. Single-Colour Shirts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jake Has A Decent Time

"So, are you excited for your big day, Jakey?" Sarah asked as the two of them were sat on the couch in their living room. Some talkshow was playing on the old tv in the corner, but neither of them was paying attention to it. It was muted anyways. Jake nodded absentmindedly and continued his revising.

"Just sucks that mister Bates planned a test the day after." He said as he tried to cram more facts into his mind. He got why his mum was so caught up in this, of course. He was pretty sure the whole town did.  
Because on your eighteenth birthday you wake up in your soulmate's bedroom. And on her eighteenth birthday, Sarah had woken up in her own room, and climbed out the window to avoid her parents.

"I could ask Brian to move it if you want me to." She offered as she watched her son groan in frustration at the text in his book.

"No, I'll be fine, just should've started earlier, but I was too busy playing footy." Jake shrugged. Grades didn't matter that much anyways. They weren't good when he did study, so why even bother. He was gonna have to get a scholarship if he hoped to go to uni.

"Well, if you say so. I'm sure you'll do great, Jakey." She assured him. "I should head to bed, I'm starting at six tomorrow. I'll see you on Friday, okay?" She pressed a kiss to Jake's forehead, and he assured her he'd see her on Friday. "Happy Birthday." She said as she left the living room.

Jake kept trying to study but eventually ended up falling asleep on the worn-out couch.

 

When he woke up, it was like he was in another world completely. He'd fallen asleep in his small home with old furniture and a fridge that made an unholy sound every now and then. And now, he was staring at a pristine white ceiling, in a bedroom that was bigger than his living room. There was a laptop on the desk and a fancy-looking chair in front of it. The sheets were unbelievably soft and comfortable, and based on the amount of doors, the room had an en-suite bathroom. This was his soulmate's bedroom? Well, at least he'd be able to help his mum out some.  
Jake carefully slipped out from under the covers, it was way too hot for them anyways, and set his feet down on the light wooden floor, walking towards one of the doors and finding an en-suite behind it, just like he'd thought. He splashed his face with some water and looked around a bit. Surely his soulmate wouldn't mind him using their deodorant? But what if it was a girl? He checked the cupboard. Definitely a guy. There were three cans of AXE in there, alongside a razor that looked way too clean to be a regularly-used one. Probably bought in a wishful thinking moment.

Jake quickly used the deodorant and tried to decipher a bit more about his soulmate. He cared about his looks a lot, that much was clear from the excessive amounts of hair products and the concealer Jake had found hidden away behind a comb. He went back into the bedroom and tried another door. This one was a walk-in closet filled with a lot of bomber jackets, shorts, and single-colour shirts. There was also an entire shelf dedicated entirely to caps. A skateboard stood proudly in a corner, and Jake picked it up to examine it, taking note of every sticker on the bottom, and there were a lot.

He checked the clock. 9.55 AM. He still had five more minutes until he went back. He frantically continued looking for something that told him straight-up who his soulmate was. He knew that he skated and what his fashion sense was like. A notice board on the wall caught Jake's eye and he walked up to it. A few drawings and pictures were pinned to it, nothing that really told Jake too much, alongside some letters. Letters that had an address on them. And a name.  
"Sam Conte." Jake read out loud as he grabbed one of the letters. Sam Conte. Wait. Shit. He knew that name. Of course he knew that name. Sam Conte was probably the most popular guy in their school. Jake couldn't believe his luck. Not only was it someone from his area, they went to the same school. They'd be able to talk the next day.

Well, that's what Jake thought, at least.


	2. Thanks To Sam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam Has A Bad Time

When Sam opened his eyes, he was convinced he had gone blind for a good two seconds. The total darkness that surrounded him felt suffocating and he wrestled to free himself from it. In reality he was just wrestling a blanket into submission, but it's the thought that counts.  
The room he'd woken up, his soulmate's room, was a lot to take in, to say the least. Every surface was littered with books and jars and vials full of questionable liquids. Sam wasn't sure he wanted to know what was in them, at least, even if he was kinda thirsty. The books seemed a mix of old but taken care of and new but abused. One shelf of the nearby closet was full of just notebooks that had been haphazardly thrown in there, barely balanced enough to stay on the shelf. Most things in the bedroom were a bit wobbly, actually, and all of it had seen better days. The chair at the desk was on its last leg, literally, it was held together by ducktape, the desk itself had a fair amount of tape covering bits here and there, and the closet seemed to be one notebook from breaking. There was a couch built under one of the windows which seemed to be doing fine, but when Sam sat down on it, he could feel the wood bending under his weight.

"Who the hell are you?" Sam said out loud as he reached up to grab a notebook. Whoever it was was taller than him, that much was for sure. He finally caused an avalanche of notebooks to come down on his head. He managed to break free and opened a random one. It was filled with weird scribbles, all talking about elements or something, and bad poetry. He grabbed another one, this one was filled with tiny passages.

  
_Oscie's sick again_

  
_Got snakebites_

  
_Ellen's birthday, went to the movies_

  
_PUP gig was good, got an ear piercing ripped out_

  
_Mum's birthday_

  
_Went to the GP thanks to Sam_

  
Sam closed the book at that. He remembered that. He and his friends had beat up Felix Ferne to the point where he had to get stitches.

Shit. Shit shit shit. Felix Ferne was his soulmate. He'd bullied his soulmate for most of their lives now. He'd fucked it up before he even knew it existed, which had to be some kind of record.

He sat on the bed for a good five minutes, trying to get it to sink in that Felix was his soulmate, until only one question went through his head. 'Now what?' It asked. And Sam didn't know either. He had two minutes left and he didn't know what to do. So, he quickly tore a piece of paper out of the notebook and scrambled to try and find a pen. He managed to scrawl a quick "sorry" onto it and left it under the pillow before he blacked out.


	3. British Criminals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felix Has A Theory

Felix' morning was somehow even less eventful than Jake's had been, since his soulmate had had half a brain to leave behind a note with his name, phone number, and address. But even without all that, Felix would've been able to know that it was Andy Lau anyways. He could see the Bremin main street through the window, there was a huge Bear Grylls poster on the wall, and the room was cluttered with books. The printer and computer in the corner were a dead giveaway too, especially considering that Andy's English essay about his heritage was still open. It had been assigned only one day prior but Andy already had six pages of text, no pictures. Felix hadn't known what to write. His family was probably just a bunch of criminals from Britain, he was a white Australian, of course they were.

He decided to go look through some drawers. Sure, he knew who his soulmate was, but he didn't _know_ who his soulmate was, if that makes sense. He'd seen Andy in the halls often enough, and they'd talked occasionally on days when Ellen was out ill and Felix didn't feel like sitting alone at lunch, but they'd never had any actual meaningful conversations.   
He rummaged through some desk drawers and only found binders full of school work, a lot of pens, paper, more books, and other such stuff.   
He kept looking for a little while until something in the corner caught his eye. The Bear Grylls poster wasn't attached to the wall in one corner. 'Gotcha' Felix thought to himself, and he walked over to check if his suspicions were right. The other bottom corner also came off pretty easily, so Felix could push the poster up and grab the notebook that was in the perfectly notebook-shaped hole in the wall. If you want to learn about a person, read their notebooks. That's why Felix hadn't left a note for Andy, he was sure he could figure it out. He carefully opened the notebook, being extra cautious since he knew how much Andy preferred to keep things clean.

The notebook was...not what Felix had suspected. He'd thought it was gonna be full of maths or maybe a diary-like thing like he had, but no. Not that Felix knew what it was, he had no way to figure it out considering the fact that Andy had written it in Mandarin, but he was at least sure it wasn't maths. The way it was structured almost made him think that they were recipes. He glanced at the clock, five minutes left, and sat down at the computer, wanting to translate at least some of it. The essay caught his eye again. Singapore, that was where Andy's family were from.   
He quickly opened google translate and typed in a bunch of cake ingredients in English, so he could translate them to Mandarin and check his theory.

However, right as he was clicking translate, he passed out.


	4. Bremin's Biggest Jock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andy Has A Family

While Andy may have been smart enough to leave his soulmate a note the night before, it seemed that he'd lost his braincells overnight when he woke up in a small bedroom with sunlight streaming down on his face. For almost a full second he was filled with panic, until he remembered that it was his eighteenth birthday and yeah, this was normal, he was supposed to be in a stranger's house. Although, upon closer inspection of the trophies, it didn't seem to be a stranger after all. All of them were from competitions from the general Bremin area, there were even a few Bremin High-specific ones, and a small voice in the back of his mind told Andy that he knew damn well who this was. It also told him that he was lucky.

He remembered what his nai nai had told him about his parents. How his mum had woken up in Singapore and nearly freaked out, thinking that the past five years of living in Australia had been a dream. How his dad had woken up in Australia and been freaked out by the fact that there was a kangaroo right outside the bedroom's sliding doors. Since his mum used to live in a pretty rural area, that was nothing new, but to his dad, who'd been raised in the city, it was everything but.  
Yes, Andy was lucky that it was someone from Bremin. It wasn't lucky that it was Jake Riles. Because, based on the trophies, there was no one it could be apart from Bremin's golden boy. Every coach's favourite. Even Bates seemed to like him more than the average student. But that might have something to do with the rumour that he and Sarah Riles were dating. It was quite the scandal. People over eighteen didn't date. Why would they when they already had a soulmate.

Andy continued looking through the collection of sports paraphernalia on the dresser while imagining a future with Jake Riles of all people. Maybe a good first step would be to just start thinking of him as Jake. Yes, that was nice. Jake. For some reason Jake's existence suddenly calmed him, when it used to do the opposite. Jake and Sam Conte and all their friends used to strike fear in his heart. But now that he and Jake were soulmates, maybe Jake could get them to back off for a bit.

Yeah, that would be nice. Just he and Jake against the world. Bremin's biggest nerd and Bremin's biggest jock, taking on life together. Andy could get used to that. He couldn't wait to tell his family all about it. Would they be happy? Would they be sad? He had no control over who his soulmate was, they knew that, but nai nai had been so happy when she found out that his mum's family was from Singapore too.

Well, that was a problem for tomorrow.

Or maybe a little later.


	5. Ellen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jake Reads Some Books

The next day, Jake had expected to wake up to the sight of the chipping paint on his ceiling. To hear his mum stumble out of the house to start her six AM shift and to listen to the sound of the neighbours' radio, which always seemed to be blaring. What he was met with instead, was silence and a somehwat smoke-stained ceiling and black curtains in his face. This wasn't his house.   
Fear gripped at his throat. Had something go wrong? Was Sam not his soulmate? What if he was like his mum and he didn't even have a soulmate? And where the hell was he? Questions swirled through his head and he shook it to clear his mind. No time for this, gotta find out who this person is.

His first impression of the room was just dark. The curtains hid most of the light and the black walls didn't help much either. There was a messy pile of notebooks on the floor and every surface was littered with glasses and vials. Jake decided not to question it. When he leaned a hand on the pillow he heard something rustle. He fished a piece of paper out from under it. It just had a quick 'sorry' scrawled on it, nothing else, but Jake recognized the handwriting from somewhere.

He moved on to the notebooks while continuing to think about the note. The first one that he picked up was just a history notebook, filled with nothing but notes from classes in a readable but messy handwriting. The notes seemed familiar, and Jake had a very string feeling that if he could compare them to his own history notes, they'd turn out to be rather similar.

The next notebook had been next to the pile instead of on it, and it seemed to have been crushed slightly, like someone had clutched it recently. He flipped it open to a random page but immediately knew who this person was when he saw one name repeated over and over again. Ellen. Everywhere. Ellen Ellen Ellen. Went to the movies with Ellen. Ellen was ill. Ellen got a nose piercing. Ellen told me i should get snakebites. Ellen this Ellen that.

This was Felix Ferne.

'Well shit.' Was the only thing Jake could think to himself as he kept flipping through the notebook. Felix Ferne of all people. Not only did Jake have what he assumed to a second soulmate, it was the nemesis of his first soulmate. He kept reading through the notebook as he watched the time on the clock. His eyes fell on one specific passage near the end. _Went to the GP thanks to Sam._ Wait. Shit.

Jake realized why the handwriting on the note seemed so familiar right as he passed out.


	6. Weird Amount Of Khakis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam Has Another Bad Time

After his rather rough morning the previous day, Sam wanted nothing more than to go back home and figure out a way to apologize to Felix for everything he'd done. Properly this time, not with a single word left under a pillow. What he definitely didn't want, was to wake up in Andy Lau's bedroom.

Guess what happened.

Panic filled Sam for about a minute when he woke up and saw a ceiling that was definitely not his. There was an open notebook next to him on the bed, and one of the pages was slightly crumpled due to the weird position. The computer was on and was showing a word having been typed into google translate. Milk. And it's mandarin counterpart. Sam picked up the notebook and flipped through for a while. He couldn't read anything and he wasn't sure if he preferred that over his experiences at Felix' or not.

The bookshelves in the corner caught his eye next. Books sorted by subject, writers, date of publication, and colour. Whoever's room this was had a full rainbow of physics books from 2018 by one publisher. The most worn books were the survival books on the bottom shelf, Sam noted, but he didn't know any survival-nut nerds. Maybe this one wasn't from Bremin.

Sam turned to look out the window. Yeah, that was definitely Bremin. The main street, even. "If that's the dry cleaner's then this is-" Sam tried to reconstruct the street in his mind. "the Chinese place." Holy shit. He was in the Laus' house. Hah, that rhymes. Wait. No. Not time for jokes. Gotta figure out who this is. It's a Lau, that much is clear, but was it Vivian or Andy? There was only one way to find out.

Sam looked around the room. Okay so maybe there were more ways to find out than just looking for an underwear drawer. Based on the shoes next to the closet, it was Andy. The weird amount of khakis confirmed that.

Andy Lau.

Sam thought back. Had he ever hurt Andy? Probably. When he and his friends got sick of pushing Mike or Felix around, they usually turned to Andy. No beating him up or anything, but Sam figured the names also hurt to an extent, because Andy usually avoided them. Not only did Sam have two soulmates, he'd already messed up with both of them. Of course he had. Great, now he had to figure out a way to apologize to both of them. He picked up the notebook again, wrote a quick sorry on the last page, and left it open, al the pages straightened out for Andy to find. Felix was probably the one who left it crumpled.

Sam was still running through his apology options when he passed out again.


	7. Curtain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felix Has An Imagination

Waking up in Andy's bedroom hadn't been a surprise to Felix, he'd already had his supicions. Waking up in Jake Riles' bedroom, now that he hadn't prepared for. But there was no doubt that that was who this was. Bremin trophies on the dresser, footy team pictures on the shelf, an old jersey thrown over the rickety desk chair. The room was well lit, and it hurt Felix' eyes a little at first, since he was so used to waking up in his own dark bedroom, and even Andy had had his curtains closed. Shit, he forgot to close Andy's curtains. Oh well, he'd run out of time, surely Andy would understand. Or maybe it wouldn't be Andy. What if it was Jake who'd woken up in Andy's room. The three of them. Soulmates.

Could he imagine it? Could he let himself? Yes. The answer was yes.

He sank into his own mind.

He could imagine the three of them. Running off together. Somewhere, anywhere. Somewhere where Jake had a scholarship and Andy could go to uni and Felix could bartend or something, he wasn't sure yet. He wasn't gonna be going to university, he knew that much. But Jake and Andy would support him, and he would support them. And they'd get a place together, far away from Bremin and their childhoods. Every bit of shitty shared history, and replace it with new memories. Their memories.

He tried to imagine it but it seemed wrong. Something seemed off, like someone was missing. He tried to fill the gap. Ellen? No. Not Ellen. That hurt a bit, but he was sure the universe had a reason for why they weren't soulmates. Someone else entirely. The opposite of Ellen. Mia? No. Closer but no. Then who. Who could it be. Who were they missing.  
Opposite of Ellen, close to Mia. It could only be one person. Sam Conte. Because Felix wasn't gonna have a hard time trusting him. Like at all. Shit.

It would be okay. That's what Felix told himself. If it was Sam, there had to be a reason. The four of them must work well together. If that was what the universe wanted, then it was meant to be. And if it was meant to be then it would be. They'd find a way.

Everything will be okay.


	8. A New Regime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andy Gains Some Power

Panic gripped Andy again when he woke up in yet another stranger's bedroom. This wasn't how things should go. He should be back in his own bed in his own room. He should be crossing the hall to tell Viv about Jake being his soulmate. He should be getting ready for school, ready for Bates' chemistry test. He should be home. But that wasn't where the universe wanted him, it seemed.  
Instead, he was in a bedroom that was too big. Anything could be anywhere behind the three (three!) doors he could see. It was minimalistic but he had a feeling the rooms behind those doors would be more cluttered, more covered in stuff that this probably rich kid didn't need.

Andy was right. There were clothes on the floor of the closet, skateboard balanced on top of it, and a pile of shoes in the corner. He didn't know if he could step anywhere, nor how his second soulmate managed to get dressed in the morning. God, how he wished he were getting dressed right now, going to see Jake at school. He grabbed a cap from the top shelf and examined it; it seemed strangely familiar, he had definitely seen it somewhere. Maybe at school or in town or - god forbid - on tv. He didn't want his soulmate to live far away. He didn't want to have to pay for plane tickets and get visas and mess around with passports.

He walked out of the closet and his eyes fell on a notice board in a corner of the room. There were a bunch of artsy pictures and drawings on it. A chemistry test with 78% marked on it and one that read 20%. There were also a bunch of notes and letters from far away places. One of the letters was on the floor, ripped as if someone had torn it from the board. Jake, maybe? The room was so clean and tidy that it almost couldn't have been their soulmate, so it had to have been Jake, right?  
Andy turned the letter over in his hand, reading the name it was addressed to. Sam Conte.

And once again, Andy had been lucky. Not only did he no longer have to endure Jake's bullying, he also didn't have to be afraid of Sam anymore. He could see it, imagine it, right before him. Sam, Jake, and Andy, ruling the school together. Best athlete, Bremin's favorite, and the smartest kid in school, in charge of the world. He'd make their current regime fall and they'd rise on top of it, nicer than they were before but still undoubtedly in charge. And undoubtedly in love. How did Andy manage to fall in love with two people in just two mornings. He didn't know, he just knew that he was. He was in love with this idea he'd seen of better days at Bremin High. In love with the boys beside him and the power they gave him. In love with everything they represented.

But was he in love with them?


	9. Viv

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jake Has A Nice Talk

At this point, Jake didn't even expect to wake up at home anymore. Somehow, the unpredictability of his surroundings were a comfort. Bear Gryll's face staring at him as he slept, however, was the opposite of calming. Jake nearly screamed as he shot op. The poster was sun-worn and one of the corners wasn't attached to the wall anymore. The computer on the desk was making a noise that reminded Jake of his fridge. It was probably because its owner hadn't been in this room for a few days now. Google translate was open with some groceries typed into it. The bedsheets were messy, probably from who Jake hoped to be Felix and Same waking up in the bed for the past two days. There was an open notebook on the bed, entirely filled with mandarin, and some of its contents matched the words on the screen.

The bookshelves were full of science-related stuff and were sorted incredibly well, which formed a contrast to this mess of a room. It was the exact opposite of Sam's neat main room, messy closet technique, and Jake smiled at that. They always say opposites attract.

Now for the real question: who is it? Jake could hear cars underneath the window and he was about to walk over to it when someone knocked on the door. That wasn't supposed to happen. You don't knock on someone's door on their soul day. Then again, their eighteenth birthday was two days ago.   
"Andy, are you back yet?" A voice spoke up from the other side of the door. "Nai-nai is making me work your shifts so you better not be pretending to not be here."  
Andy, that was his name. Could it be...

"He's not here." Jake replied to whoever was looking for him. "But could you tell me his full name?"  
An audible sight came from the other side of the door. Whoever the voice belonged to was clearly done with this shit.  
"Andy Lau. We live in Bremin, in Australia, and you are?"  
"Jake Riles."

That answer seemed good enough for the other and her footsteps receded. So, Andy Lau. Now that Jake had a chance to look out the window he realized that he was above the Chinese place in town.

Andy Lau. Who else could it have been.


End file.
